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General Motors Continuous Damping Control Technology

Continuous Damping Control (CDC) is a General Motors chassis and suspension technology that optimizes a vehicle’s ride and handling to deliver the best possible driving experience.

How It Works

CDC is comprised of three primary components:

Sensors at each wheel that detect relative wheel-to-body position sensors

A dedicated control unit with integrated sensors that detect heave, pitch and body roll motion

Active dampers with electronically-controlled valves that are individually controlled every two milliseconds in a continuous range between the softest and firmest damping

CDC actuators sensors and hardware

The process to actively control dampers works in the following sequence:

Sensors collect data and feed it to the vehicle’s ECU

Serving as the central repository of the data, the ECU evaluates the data to determine the ideal damping force for every individual wheel

The system adjusts compression and rebound to provide optimum damping within a range of characteristic curves, from hard/safety-oriented to soft/comfort-oriented

The damping program calculated by the ECU is then sent to each damper

Valves within the damper carry out the damping requirements

The cycle repeats

The CDC system adjusting compression and rebound to provide optimum damping within a range of characteristic curves, from hard/safety-oriented to soft/comfort-oriented, with the complete process (loop) taking place within two milliseconds.

A vehicle-specific characteristic adjustment can also take place via the valve system.

Dampers

CDC is capable of working with dampers with internal or external valves.

Advantages & Benefits

According to automotive supplier ZF, Continuous Damping Control offers the following benefits over a traditional damping system:

Greater safety thanks to optimized wheel damping

Enhanced driving comfort and dynamics, e.g. during lane-change

Reduced roll, pitch and vertical motion

Precise tracking during acceleration

Superior handling

Improved cornering stability

Shorter breaking distances thanks to better road contact

Continuous adjustment in real time

Other Names

Continuous Damping Control is sometimes also referred to as:

Electronically controlled continuous damping

Real-time damping suspension

Real-time chassis damping system

Vehicle Applications

Typically assigned RPO code F45, Continuous Damping Control is available on the following models:

Generations

The 2018 Buick Regal introduced the second generation Continuous Damping Control system that’s capable of 500 adjustments per second. All prior models used the first-generation of the system.

Related Technologies

The GM Adaptive Ride Control is believed to be a variation of Continuous Damping Control modified for body-on-frame vehicles.

Meanwhile, GM Magnetic Ride Control is an entirely different system. Despite being based on similar principles as CDC, Magnetic Ride Control uses a different set of technologies, most notably magneto-rheological shock absorbers, to carry out the adaptive functionality.